Normal vs Hard relating to quests/markers/clues

[Justice]

Hi, I am a longtime advocate of Kingdom Come though only recently been able to put time and effort into the game.
Alongside the promise of a great combat system, deep lore, historical accuracy and immersion, was mention of challenge, difficulty and freedom - most of which as a result of a title that would not hold your hand.

Yet right from the start, the game does exactly that - holds your hand, and my question is whether this is altered considerably via patches in the last year, or maybe I have to change to Hardcore mode?

Here is what I’ve experienced so far under Normal.

• A full color map in period era style (not sure how Henry acquired that, especially for towns he never lived in or visited even)
• Quest logs which tell you exactly what to do
• Map markers and icons of where to find things
• Compass markers
• Characters that tell you exactly what to do, where to go or as a minimum divulge far too much information and detail that seems often unlikely

It really struck me when I was trying to find a spade to bury the parents. I immediately thought, well this is a farming community, I should be able to find one in a few moments lying on the ground - heck likely a few were used as defensive weapons in the siege of Skalitz. Yet I could find none in the rubble.

Only after I heard the dog barking and I managed to go through the dialogue with Zbyshek, could I acquire one. Out of curiosity, I opened the map moments prior to speaking to him and noticed that it was actually on the map - plain as day ‘Collect a spade’ (paraphrased).

Or prior to that, as another example, which involves encounters and dialogues. The task of leaving Talmberg was achieved by either jumping off the bridge or getting a suit of armor and having the guard LET you go, an idea that he and every other guard including the Lady suggested (while sitting right next to her husband I might add…?). She herself even recommends you hide your face, and that would be a good idea to turn your body away from the guard while passing by, yet it doesn’t matter as he’s IN ON THE PLAN!

And to make this more laudable, is that the armor is in a chest that’s conveniently an easy lock pick, which is marked on your map, despite everyone openly sharing with you that you’ll need to steal it from the building above the gate.

That got me thinking back to all the things I had done so far in this short period of time, where everything was marked and i hadn’t needed to spend any time actually investigating, speaking to persons, collecting clues or using any initiative to progress.

I am not sure how this supports immersion in any way, and it also puts the game on rails.

Previously I read that there are some options you can amend in-game though did not see them, and additionally mods that remove compass and your player marker on map(not sure about quest markers), though nothing that would have rewritten all the dialogues.

As per comment here by Tobi, they were considering something. Did this ever happen?

For now I will be using this mod
Any other suggestions?

[bloodysod]

Yeah, if there was anything I found disappointing about the game, I’d say you nailed it. Well, that and the missing bouncing beta boobs.

[savvym]

Henry might visit those few towns around. He said he never saw the world, maybe further than Rattay region. And Henry was often doing some bad stuff with his friends, possibly running off to these villages, it is not confirmed.
Quest logs are there for those who are lost, I never really spent much time there unless I wanted.
Map markers are lost from map, though will appear once you reach some quest area on your blind compass on hardcore mode.
Compass markers are there on hardcore mode, though they are not telling you which way is the North.
The first few quests in KCD were linear, so there goes a lot of this “hand holding” because you can not avoid them if you want to continue the main story to the point where it is more free.